Saturday, October 11, 2014

"Gamergate" is Dumbest Thing I've Seen In Quite Some Time

Yeah, so I'm not at the huge New York Comic-Con, clearly, and with announcements coming out a pace that could be understated as, "brisk," I'll probably wait until it is over to express any thoughts about the overall event and all the stuff that will have occurred at it. That said, I do have an opinion on what has to be one of the most stupid (stupidest?) so-called "movements" ever. I referring to what has been dubbed, "Gamergate."

What is Gamergate? Well, some fools out there would say something along the lines of how it is a consumer movement for more honesty in games journalism, but as soon as we start scratching the surface of that claim we see it is a paper-thin skin with nothing but a boiling blood of hatred for women beneath it.

This article summarizes Gamergate well, but to give you an abbreviated version of how "Gamergate" itself came about, basically a jilted ex of independent game developer Zoe Quinn wrote an angry article about how she had slept with game reviewers in exchange for positive reviews of her own title, "Depression Quest." This led to an outcry for journalistic integrity from some in the gaming community, which sounds all well-and-good until it became clear these members of the "gaming community" were people who had always had it out for people like Zoe Quinn, or any woman in the gaming-world who developed games, talked about them, etc. When your group claims they want honesty in the press, but then privately exchange emails about how they wish various known-female gamer-makers or writers would be raped or murdered, you clearly are not, "The good guys," in this scenario.

I've seen and heard claims that even if Gamergate has somewhat toxic origins it has grown as a movement and is now truly about journalism. No, no its not. Leaked files of various horrible people have shown the goal has always been to demonize women, feminists, gay folk, minorities, or anyone who doesn't fit the normal profile of the boys' club gamer--e.g. a white straight dude. People who have spoken out against Gamergate have been dismissed as, "Social Justice Warriors," which is a weird thing to insult someone with as isn't it a good thing to fight for social justice? I mean really, the fact they dismiss people with that alone should raise a large red flag for anyone who wants to support Gamergate. Were Gamergate just a small assortment of angry fanboys I wouldn't be concerned, but it has festered and gained power to a point where harassing Intel to stop running ads on website Kotaku (for running an article critical of Gamergate) actually resulted in Intel capitulating to Gamergate, and then panicking when seeing how it made them look like sexist jerks. So yeah, Gamergate may be a small-ish group of hateful people, but its large and well-organized enough to cause serious trouble.

I don't really have much of a point to this article other than to inform those of you who were unaware about Gamergate what it was, and why supporting it would be foolish. Also, if you knew of Gamergate but didn't know the ugly truth about it, I sincerely hope I've changed your mind from thinking it is some respectable movement to how it actually just a hate group hiding under a guise of legitimacy. Therefore, Gamergate is understandably the dumbest thing I've seen in quite some time, and might be for awhile.